Syrian or Hezbollah militants fired on a Sunni funeral today in Beirut.6 people were killed.People react as an ambulance arrives at the site of shooting in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, May 10, 2008. Unknown gunmen opened fire on a funeral procession Saturday in a Sunni neighborhood of Beirut killing two and wounding six, a day after Shiite gunmen swept through the Lebanese capital’s Muslim sector, police said. (AP)

Six people died when Hezbollah militants fired on a Sunni funeral in Beirut on Saturday.NDTV reported:

Violence raged in Lebanon for a fourth straight day leaving 11 people dead on Saturday as tension gripped the country after Hezbollah seized control of west Beirut in what the West-backed coalition branded an armed coup.

The death toll from the fighting between mainly Sunni supporters of the ruling bloc and Shiite members of the opposition hit 29, prompting Prime Minister Fuad Siniora to announce an address to the nation as Lebanon teetered dangerously close to a new civil war.

Five people were killed in north Lebanon in clashes between the rival supporters, a security official said.

In the capital, six people were killed when gunmen opened fire at the funeral procession of a Sunni civilian killed in earlier clashes.

”We have six dead and 20 injured, six of them in critical condition,” an official at Beirut’s Makassed hospital said.

People carry an injured man on a stretcher, following a shooting at a funeral in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, May 10, 2008. (AP)

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has said his country would not fall to Hezbollah in his first public speech since the Iranian-backed militant group started its military coup.

Barack Obama issued a statement mainly made up of standard American boilerplate regarding Hezbollah. However, given the running coup d’etat in the country, there is a bizarre focus on “work[ing] with the international community and the private sector to rebuild Lebanon and get its economy back on its feet.” I am also outraged that he neglected to mention the pressing issue of civil marriage.

Unfortunately, if Obama wins in the fall the world can expect to hear 4 years of empty statements like that one.

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